Page 49 of Love At Close Range

“I told you to watch your fucking mouth!” Lennox growled as he hit him again.

“Damn it! Stop it Lennox before our son sees this,” I pleaded. That seemed to calm him down some and I was glad.

Dorian stood from the floor and wiped his mouth yet again. This time he move to head out of the kitchen, but he turned to me before he left.

“So, you gone choose this nigga over us, Ree?” He asked and I just stared at him. “That’s what we’re doing now?”

Sighing I turned to Dorian. “Lennox has nothing to do with me not wanting you here or telling you to leave. I already had that made up in my mind because of your actions. I can’t do this with you anymore, and if we’re being honest… I checked out of the relationship a long time ago.” Dorian looked at me like I was the lowest piece of scum on the face of the Earth. “Goodbye, Dorian,” I spoke before motioning for him to leave.

He looked between Lennox and me before finally retreating. When he was gone I saw Lennox headed back into the kitchen and started picking up the shit he knocked over while he was tossing Dorian around like a Raggedy Ann doll.

“I got that, and you can leave,” I said, taking the container from his hand.

“Leave?” He asked with a frown. “Ree, please don’t piss me off.” He grilled me.

“Piss you off?” I pointed my finger at him. “I’m not the one who turned my gah damn kitchen into a wrestling match!” I seethed.

“That wasn’t shit. He better be glad I’ain do what I intended to do,” Lennox countered. “But I’m not leaving… not right now. My son is home now and I wanna spend some time with him before I go,” he stated.

When he asked that, my demeanor softened some. I wouldn’t deny him access to Rhyse, especially after what he came in and told me when he first got here.

“That’s fine,” I agreed after a moment.

Lennox pushed away from the island and nodded. “Thank you.”

I led him up the stairs and stopped in front of Rhyse’s bedroom before knocking. When I opened the door, Rhyse was sitting in the middle of his bed with his game controller in his hand, but judging by the way he looked at us, he hadn’t been paying much attention to whatever was on the television.

“You good?” I asked as I stepped inside and he nodded. “Lennox wants to hang out with you for a while before he goes home. You okay with that?”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” he responded.

“Don’t keep him up all night,” I said to Lennox.

“We’re good,” he replied as he stepped into the room with Rhyse.

I watched them for a few seconds before I left them alone and went to my room so I could decompress from the night. The minute I got to my room, I called Mona and added Taryn to the call because there was no way I was explaining this night twice.

“Okay, what happened?” Taryn asked as soon as she got on the phone.

“Yeah, your baby daddy still over there?” Mona asked.

“Her baby daddy? Lennox? Bitch, you fucking your baby daddy already?” She fired off question after question.

“Bitch, breathe… damn,” I laughed. “And no, I’m not fucking my baby daddy. He came over to talk about Rhyse and the shit that happened when I told him I was pregnant,” I informed them.

“So, what happened?” Mona asked first.

I took a breath because saying it out loud made me mad all over again. “Kree saw it before Lennox ever did. She had his phone, responded to me pretending to be him, then deleted everything so he really didn’t know I was pregnant,” I revealed getting pissed all over again.

“See, this is why I never trusted that bitch,” Mona spat. “She always had too much interest in whatever you and Lennox had going on.”

I frowned as I stared toward the ceiling. “I really thought he knew, Mo. All these years I thought he got that message and chose not to be in his child’s life. That’s what fucked me up the most about all of this,” I voiced honestly.

“I know,” Mona said, her voice softening. “And finding out you carried all that anger because of something she did has to be messing with your head.”

“It is,” I admitted. “Because now I gotta look at everything different. He missed being there for Rhyse because he didn’t know, and I spent years hating him for something he never did.”

“Baby, Kree would had to see me after some trifling shit like that,” Taryn mentioned.